Building a cheap - really cheap beauty dish

What is a beauty dish ? Read here : http://photo.net/photography-lighting-equipment-techniques-forum/00GsOM

Sometime back I had read about building a DIY beauty dish using disposable salad bowls. Forgot the link. It is dirt cheap to make, yet provides fabulous effects.

Basically, you need to have two circular/parabolic reflective vessels - one larger than the other. see the drawing:

List of items you need

1. A disposable salad dish of about 6 inches  diameter. (white colour)

2. A disposable salad dish of about 3-4 inches diameter (white colour)

3. metal strips that are used to tie long electrical wires. (3 Nos). Some bread packets also come tied with such wires.

4.  A rubber band

5. A scissor/sharp knife and a measuring scale.

Note: Disposable plastic bowls are available in all provision stores, and may cost around Rs. 2-3 per bowl.

Step 1:

First, measure the length and width of the flash head. For SB600, it is 5.8 cm x 4cm.

make a rectangular opening in the base of the larger salad bowl in the above dimension, so that the flash head goes into the opening. This must be done as shown in the below drawing. Make sure that you cut along only the red lines:

The cut must be made so that the cut out portion of the rectangle opens like two window panes. These flaps will be used to attach the dish on to the flash head.

 

Step 2:

Attach the smaller bowl on top of the larger bowl using those metal strips as shown in the final photo.

Step 3:

Now open the cut flaps on the larger bowl, insert the flash head into the rectangular opening and use a rubber band to hold the dish in place. 

That's it. You're on !

Below photos shows the difference between a direct flash and one with the beauty dish on.

[1] With Direct flash - So harsh
[2] With Beauty Dish on - Notice the difference in tone with the softened light